Stay clear of GoalsOnTrack

I am a sucker for GTD tools and still have not found my perfect one. Back in August I came across GoalsOnTrack. There was no trial, $9.95 a month and 60 days of trial, I emailed about it and got a response from Harry Che "We treat our 60-day money back guarantee very seriously. If a refund is requested, it's usually processed within 2-3 days.".

I signed up and started playing with GoalsOnTrack. Immediately I had problems importing and provided detailed feedback. Harry worked with me and reformatted my csv file for importing. I gave some more feedback but was unimpressed and disappointed software I had to pay up from to trail was so immature, I decided to see if they would release updates and respond to my suggestions.

I got an email saying payment had been taken and responded:

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Re: Payment Receipt: 836 Confirmation from GoalsOnTrack.com
Date: Mon, 28 Sep 2009 13:53:17 +0100
From: Tom Corcoran
To: GoalsOnTrack.com

I have not tried it since. I was waiting to see what progress has been made and if the product is more mature. Do you post release notes?

How long do left I have in my 60 days?

Thanks, Tom.
-------- Original Message --------

I never heard back and forgot about it. I got another email saying payment had been taken again and responded:

-------- Original Message --------
Subject: Re: Payment Receipt: 928 Confirmation from GoalsOnTrack.com
Date: Wed, 07 Oct 2009 11:33:40 +0100
From: Tom Corcoran
To: GoalsOnTrack.com

Payment approved again, what?

I have not gone near this since, please can I cancel immediately.

Thanks, Tom.
-------- Original Message --------

I got a response saying "Your account has been canceled, and you will never be billed again.". After querying about the 60 day refund I got a message "Can you send me the proof of date of your cancelation request?". More followed:
"According to our records, you signed up on Aug 7, 2009, and requested to cancel on Oct 7, 2009, which has already passed the 60-day period. We've already refunded the extra charge immediately after you sent the cancel request. You're not eligible for further refunds. However, we may consider credits to your account if you choose to sign up again in future.".

I played with the software a little and did one import but never added additional tasks or used it in any way. I provided detailed feedback which would have helped to improve their software. I got specific assurance at the start that they were very timely about refunds and subsequently had my request for how long I had left in my evaluation conveniently ignored, thereby when my official cancellation came in, they were covered by Aug 7 - Oct 7 being 62 days. I have not been refunded the $19.80 I paid for the first 60 days.

Complaint lodged with the Complaints Board.

Be warned with eFax

Some companies still insist on a fax, so occasionally it's still useful these days. I found eFax handy, I got a local Waterford 051 number and had 30 days free trial.

It warned that I needed to cancel after that but I forgot. I ended up not using the service at all in the end. A month later I got charged €13.27 for a months subscription.

I emailed and was given an English 0870 number to ring as the only way to cancel. At least on saynoto0870 I actually got a Dublin number to ring. I called and they cancelled but under no circumstance would they refund the €13.37 I was charged for a service I never used.

I'll never buy Acer again

I was looking for a recommendation for a replacement to my noisy (linux) server, my requirements:

• super quiet, hardly know it's on


• small, don't need monitor, keyboard, mouse, have all that if needed


• reasonably priced


• run squeezebox server


• use it as a print server so all machines in the house could print

some forum advice recommended an Acer Aspire easystore H340. Jumping on to the Acer website and looking for online dealers I found what I thought was the recommended machine. I bought it impulsively without enough research.



There was no information about connecting to it by remote desktop / installing software and the firmware was over 2 years old so I started looking at the Acer site and posted some support tickets. I was blown away to get some strange responses including:





I had left it a few days after getting the package to open it and after the first day of playing with it I got in touch with the supplier, cclonline who told me since it was 8 days since it was shipped and I had only 7 days to return, that I was out of luck.

A week later I finally realised ,after talking with cclonline support, that I had not bought what I thought and it was a NAS box which did not have Windows Home Server running but en embedded Linux system. cclonline agreed to take it back for a restocking charge of 10%. The killer was the brutal Irish postal system as it cost me €47 to return (€42 with no insurance).

Outdoor Designs Logistics

I purchased a Lightwave Trek 2 tent in 2005. I used the tent in the 10-20 night range since then, closer to the former, prior to one of the fly zips failing in 2008 but forgotten about until used again in September 2009.

Outdoor Designs Logistics own the Lightwave brand and after a couple of mails with their distributor, Scottish Mountain gear, it was established that on the first generation T2 tents there was a fault with the zip sliders. Outdoor Designs Logistic are based in France and replaced both zip sliders under Lightwave warranty and mailed back, the tent free of charge, via Scottish Mountain Gear, by recorded delivery with Royal mail.

Do not use Baltsoft.com

Recently I needed to edit a complex pdf form. t was urgent and I needed the document. I used freepdfconvert to convert the file, to do that, contrary to the name, I had to pay $9 for a months membership.

A number of pages were converted as images and not editable text. Very disappointed, I emailed Batsoft.com support, asking for a refund asx theie conversion was unusable for me - they asked for the pdf to be sent to them. The subsequently responded:
"Your PDF has images(scanned document) and these images correctly was
placed in your word document. This is not our service fault, your PDF
was such structure."

I am still due the $9.

Complaint lodged at the Complaints board